Re: "The Deep State" aka the American Intelligence Community
Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:17 pm
Sorry...past the paywall:
Who Is Michael Sussmann?
The FBI’s general counsel met with a Clinton lawyer in September 2016.
When Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked about the origin of the infamous Trump dossier, James Comey brushed off most of the questions. The former Federal Bureau of Investigations director said someone on his “senior staff”—he couldn’t remember who—had “briefed” him on the dossier “sometime in the fall” of 2016. Mr. Comey had been told it came “from a reliable source.” He insisted he “never knew exactly which Democrats had funded” it. He then continued on about his book, which meditated on the importance of “truth.”
That interview, in April 2018, is relevant in light of a recent report from the Hill’s John Solomon that James Baker, the FBI’s general counsel from 2014-17, met “weeks before the 2016 election” with a lawyer from Perkins Coie. That’s the firm that hired Fusion GPS to compile the dossier on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
My sources confirm that the Perkins partner who bent Mr. Baker’s ear and handed over documents was Michael Sussmann, point man for the firm’s DNC and Clinton campaign accounts. They also confirm the subject of the meeting was Russian interference in the election, including hacking and supposed ties to Donald Trump. Much of this comes from an interview House investigators conducted last week with Mr. Baker.
The significance of this revelation is enormous for everything from FBI investigatory malpractice, to its dishonesty, to its current fight with the White House over document disclosure. That the FBI’s general counsel was even meeting with a top lawyer for the Clinton campaign shortly before the election is proof of that the bureau strayed beyond obvious guardrails.
It’s alarming enough that the FBI felt free to open a counterintelligence investigation into an active presidential campaign. That it also felt free to gather information for that probe from the opposing campaign is mind-boggling. Team Clinton had the most powerful position on earth to gain from Mr. Trump’s downfall. No conflict there, right?
It is unclear whether Mr. Sussmann supplied any dossier-related information to Mr. Baker. But we know from the House Intelligence Committee’s February Russia memo that “senior DOJ and FBI officials” by this time knew the DNC and the Clinton campaign were behind the dossier. The Baker-Sussmann meeting raises the likelihood that those “senior officials” extended into Mr. Comey’s inner circle and that quite a few people understood the bureau was moving against a campaign based on the rival campaign’s opposition research.
Yet those officials marched into the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and never revealed in any of their warrant applications that the dossier was a product of the Clinton campaign. It now appears the FBI also didn’t tell the court that its investigation had been informed directly by a lawyer for Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Sussmann, as a former Justice Department employee, would presumably add credibility to any FISA application—unless the FBI was worried about revealing how much it was relying on the Clinton camp. By the way, Mr. Baker told congressional investigators that he personally reviewed the initial FISA application.
The news of this meeting also gives cause to doubt the FBI’s stated reasons for refusing to release documents to Congress. For more than a year the bureau has argued that it would hurt national security and U.S. ties with foreign intelligence. It played the same card recently with Mr. Trump, persuading him to back down on his order for disclosure of redacted portions of the FISA warrants and related materials. It has heavily redacted other documents, again claiming national security.
Among the redactions are portions of footnote 43 in the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia report. That footnote states that Mr. Baker met in September 2016 with a person who provided information about supposed Russian links to the Trump campaign. It noted this same person was also communicating with the press. The person’s name is blacked out. We now know it is Mr. Sussmann.
National security? No, this was redacted to save the FBI the embarrassment of having to admit it was cooperating with the Clinton campaign. This is the same FBI that blacked out of a key text message the detail that former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s office sported a $70,000 conference table. And the same FBI that claimed it would be a national-security nightmare if House Republicans divulged the name of the FBI’s spy against the Trump campaign ( Stefan Halper ), only to leak the name itself to friendly media.
The Baker-Sussmann revelation underscores that we will never get the truth about the FBI’s behavior until those documents are made public.
Who Is Michael Sussmann?
The FBI’s general counsel met with a Clinton lawyer in September 2016.
When Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked about the origin of the infamous Trump dossier, James Comey brushed off most of the questions. The former Federal Bureau of Investigations director said someone on his “senior staff”—he couldn’t remember who—had “briefed” him on the dossier “sometime in the fall” of 2016. Mr. Comey had been told it came “from a reliable source.” He insisted he “never knew exactly which Democrats had funded” it. He then continued on about his book, which meditated on the importance of “truth.”
That interview, in April 2018, is relevant in light of a recent report from the Hill’s John Solomon that James Baker, the FBI’s general counsel from 2014-17, met “weeks before the 2016 election” with a lawyer from Perkins Coie. That’s the firm that hired Fusion GPS to compile the dossier on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
My sources confirm that the Perkins partner who bent Mr. Baker’s ear and handed over documents was Michael Sussmann, point man for the firm’s DNC and Clinton campaign accounts. They also confirm the subject of the meeting was Russian interference in the election, including hacking and supposed ties to Donald Trump. Much of this comes from an interview House investigators conducted last week with Mr. Baker.
The significance of this revelation is enormous for everything from FBI investigatory malpractice, to its dishonesty, to its current fight with the White House over document disclosure. That the FBI’s general counsel was even meeting with a top lawyer for the Clinton campaign shortly before the election is proof of that the bureau strayed beyond obvious guardrails.
It’s alarming enough that the FBI felt free to open a counterintelligence investigation into an active presidential campaign. That it also felt free to gather information for that probe from the opposing campaign is mind-boggling. Team Clinton had the most powerful position on earth to gain from Mr. Trump’s downfall. No conflict there, right?
It is unclear whether Mr. Sussmann supplied any dossier-related information to Mr. Baker. But we know from the House Intelligence Committee’s February Russia memo that “senior DOJ and FBI officials” by this time knew the DNC and the Clinton campaign were behind the dossier. The Baker-Sussmann meeting raises the likelihood that those “senior officials” extended into Mr. Comey’s inner circle and that quite a few people understood the bureau was moving against a campaign based on the rival campaign’s opposition research.
Yet those officials marched into the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and never revealed in any of their warrant applications that the dossier was a product of the Clinton campaign. It now appears the FBI also didn’t tell the court that its investigation had been informed directly by a lawyer for Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Sussmann, as a former Justice Department employee, would presumably add credibility to any FISA application—unless the FBI was worried about revealing how much it was relying on the Clinton camp. By the way, Mr. Baker told congressional investigators that he personally reviewed the initial FISA application.
The news of this meeting also gives cause to doubt the FBI’s stated reasons for refusing to release documents to Congress. For more than a year the bureau has argued that it would hurt national security and U.S. ties with foreign intelligence. It played the same card recently with Mr. Trump, persuading him to back down on his order for disclosure of redacted portions of the FISA warrants and related materials. It has heavily redacted other documents, again claiming national security.
Among the redactions are portions of footnote 43 in the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia report. That footnote states that Mr. Baker met in September 2016 with a person who provided information about supposed Russian links to the Trump campaign. It noted this same person was also communicating with the press. The person’s name is blacked out. We now know it is Mr. Sussmann.
National security? No, this was redacted to save the FBI the embarrassment of having to admit it was cooperating with the Clinton campaign. This is the same FBI that blacked out of a key text message the detail that former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s office sported a $70,000 conference table. And the same FBI that claimed it would be a national-security nightmare if House Republicans divulged the name of the FBI’s spy against the Trump campaign ( Stefan Halper ), only to leak the name itself to friendly media.
The Baker-Sussmann revelation underscores that we will never get the truth about the FBI’s behavior until those documents are made public.